Rogers Offers High School Choice

ROGERS — Excitement built last week during parent and student meetings for a charter school choice within the Rogers School District.

Three hundred incoming freshmen and sophomores will make up the first class at Rogers New Tech High School when it opens this fall. Additional grades will be added for the next two years until the school has 600 students in four grades.

Lance Arbuckle, assistant principal at Rogers High school and director of the new school, spent Wednesday and Thursday pitching the idea of the new school to freshmen at Rogers two high schools. He took in his first application at a Tuesday night parent meeting of about 35, Arbuckle said. Wednesday more than 75 people showed up with questions.

Kevin Madryga said Wednesday he had never seen his son as excited about school. When his ninth-grader came home from Heritage High School on Wednesday talking about a new way to learn, Madryga said he couldn’t get him to stop. Madryga cleared his schedule to attend the meeting that night.

“I’m excited about options,” Madryga said.

“I’m thrilled to offer choice,” said Mark Sparks, deputy superintendent. “Parents know their kids best.”

School District officials evaluated uses for the Annex — which will house the new school — for about five years, Sparks said. Other options, such as magnet schools or a Knowledge is Power Program affiliation were explored before a committee settled on New Tech.

Rogers will be the first school district in Arkansas to have a separate building for a New Tech school and give students a choice to attend. A waiver from the Arkansas Activities Association will allow students to attend band, choir, orchestra or sports at their sending school, either Rogers High School or Heritage High School. A shuttle will run during first and last periods.

Students at New Tech will still learn all the state standards. They will take Smart Core classes — required for state lottery funded scholarships — and standardized tests, but students will be called learners, school-issued laptops will replace textbooks and classes will be wrapped around projects instead of tests.

“What if we did it differently?” Arbuckle asked parents.

When he asked students how many have sat through a class where they already know the lesson, hands shot up, Arbuckle said. In a project-context, some class members may be working independently while others gather for a mini-seminar in another corner.

“What if we asked the student, ‘Tell me what you need to know?’” Arbuckle said.

Classes may teach double subjects, such as English classics in a history context.

Students will be treated like professionals, Arbuckle said. A trust card allows them a degree of independence, and they will not have to raise their hand and get a hall pass to go to the bathroom.

There are advantages and disadvantages to New Tech, Arbuckle told parents. There will be five, maybe seven Advanced Placement classes available at New Tech, whereas the other two Rogers high schools have 17 to 19. Students at New Tech will be encouraged to take concurrent credit to earn college hours instead.

Classes also will teach soft skills needed in the workplace such as collaboration, Arbuckle said. Business owners have told him they can’t hire college graduates because they don’t have the people skills to work with clients.

Parent Kyle Jack agreed. Today’s college graduate has no idea how to finish a project under pressure, he said.

“The more projects they do, the more comfortable they will be doing them,” Jack said.

New Tech will offer internships and concurrent credit and all students will be required to participate in community service, Arbuckle said. How many internships and how much concurrent credit and community service isn’t known.

“We’re still talking about that,” Arbuckle said.

Many details remain to be ironed out. First, district officials need to know how many students will enroll. Applications will be taken until Feb. 22.

Seven staff members have been selected. Teachers follow the students and Rogers will transfer up to 16 staff members for the new school’s first year, according to charter documents.

The school will be in the Annex, which already houses the district’s professional development center and alternative school. Plans filed with the state call for the district to renovate 22,000-square-feet of the building this year, adding a separate entrance for New Tech and combining several classrooms into the double-classrooms needed for combined classes.

“We’ve kinda roughed out the area we’re talking about,” said David Cauldwell, district business manager.

Decisions still have to be made on where computer labs will be and if the school will need one or two labs.

The computers for the labs can be purchased, said Chris Carter, chief information officer, but teachers have to meet and decide what software will work best in order for him to order laptops. Teachers start meeting next week, Arbuckle said. The staff will go through 800 hours of training before August, he told parents Wednesday.

“This is new for us too,” Arbuckle said.

At his first parent meeting Arbuckle said he worried the school wouldn’t have 300 applicants. By Thursday afternoon, he said he thinks all the slots will be taken. If the district receives more than 300 applications, students will be selected by lottery. The first to apply will get priority on the waiting list.

Davis Golden, a freshman at Rogers High School, grabbed an application after a Thursday presentation. Friends told him about the new school earlier in the day. The School District may find more interest than they are prepared for, he said.

“I think it would be easier to learn on a laptop,” Davis said, “I like self-guided things.”

August Patrick, freshman at Heritage High School, worried about working in small groups, but picked up an application on Wednesday.

“I have a lot of questions and I have a lot of doubts,” August said. “I think it would be better to put the doubts aside and try it out.”